Episode 322
Introduction Two down, one to go; last up, Gintoki vs. Batou with mistaken identities and illusions galore. And in the end, a certain character awakens and a certain quartet reunite. Plot During the Joui Wars, Batou remembers someone going through scores of Amanto to reach him. The two start to fight and the white haired and clothed person introduced himself as… Pakuyasa; Gintoki denies it was him as his nickname was “Shiroyasha”. Batou insists he was as his psychic eye can see the truth yet describes someone that looks and sounds completely different from Gintoki. The Amanto continues by stating that like before, his thoughts were filled for one person, his master or his friend that needs vengeance. Pakuyasa, while fighting Batou, fights to survive so he could… bring food back to his master, Gintoki. Said samurai confirms this, revealing that Pakuyasa was a rookie whom Gintoki believed wasn’t cut out for the battlefield so he had the rookie doing food supply runs. Pakuyasa really wasn’t cut out for the battlefields and left to run two failed businesses before settling on doing shady odd jobs. Gintoki decides to give Batou the overweight man’s address so the Amanto can finally settle the score with him. Batou throws a small tantrum when realizing that he’s been searching for Gintoki’s student the entire time but mockingly adds that the person whom he taken the swordsman’s “life” from (Sakamoto) was far inferior. Gintoki angrily challenges that Batou should look deeper inside Gintoki with the eye; he might not like what he finds. Batou extends his beam saber into Gintoki, shoving him into a building and stating that he’ll do so after killing him. Using his Enlightenment eye, he notes that Gintoki blocked the strike from being fatal. Then, he predicts Gintoki’s movements and counters them, leading to the samurai being thrown into rubble and barely blocking Batou’s strike. Batou admits his disappointment in how weak Gintoki was compared to his wartime self or Pakuyasa before completely slicing Gintoki in half. To his surprise, the silver-haired man still attacks him and he ends up fending off multiple Gintoki clones, who are his eye’s solid rendering of Gintoki’s invisible but potent killing intent. The Harusame captain realizes he felt this before and a clone reveals that his Enlightenment eye’s weakness was that it was too good; by taking in everything, it easily loses sight of more important things. Batou then realizes that what he was fighting back then was Gintoki’s killing intent but with some of Pakuyasa’s thoughts mixed in. The thoughts distracted him enough for Gintoki, who arrived behind Pakuyasa, to save him from Batou’s finishing strike and retreat. The clones “stab” Batou but the Star Sword King knew what the samurai’s true goal was: his sword arm that the real Gintoki stabbed as vengeance for Sakamoto, while the captain had Gintoki finally in his sights. He uses his wrist to hold the bokuto in place before beginning to strike Gintoki with his beam saber in his left hand. While doing so, Batou thinks back to the times when he fought other swordsmen and how they all tend to empty all thoughts before their impending death, proving the Amanto’s superiority. Instead, when peering into Gintoki’s thoughts, the human wants fried sunny-side up eggs for breakfast tomorrow, surprising the commander with his will to live. Another clone strikes at the off-guard cyclopes and Batou slices him, the clone created in the image of Pakuyasa. Gintoki reiterated the Enlightenment’s weakness before hitting said eye with his freed bokuto and the fight ends. Gintoki begins to leave before Batou remarks that he was the second person his eye couldn’t read, the first being Utsuro. He wonders if Gintoki will fight the immortal while Gintoki counters if he should. Batou didn’t know: Gintoki had lived all his life alongside death to the point that it had become his constant companion, while the concept of life and death doesn’t exist for Utsuro. Thus, how will Gintoki fight against that “emptiness”? Gintoki himself didn’t know but responds that he doesn’t fight for his past but for his present. Batou remarks that Gintoki doesn’t have a bottomless abyss but bottomless stupidity. At the same time in the cliffs, Shirei continuously sees his fleet being destroyed by Umibouzu alone. The watching Abuto is awed by the older man’s prowess and suspects that the father and son had the potential of destroying the pirates. Some pirates arrive on foot and Abuto and the remnant 7th division fight back. Meanwhile in another area on the cliffs, some Kiheitai carry the still comatose Takasugi until a blast knocks the Kiheitai commander over the cliffs. Another remnant of the Kiheitai containing Makoto, Takechi and Kagura rush up another road underneath just as the blast knocked Takasugi over. Makoto fails to grab Takasugi and Kagura pulls her back before she fell, too. Sensing his boss in danger, Bansai slashes through the pirates to reach the cliffs and mentally calling out to his boss not to die. He thinks back to when both he and Takasugi were in jail awaiting their execution and the then manslayer listened to Takasugi’s declarations of refusing to die so he can accomplish his goal of destroying Japan; a guard, Takechi, also listens to the conversation. Bansai, along with Shinpachi and their remnant Kiheitai reach the cliffs but Harusame ships lead by Utsuro shoots at them, injuring Bansai. Worse, they and the further back Gintoki become surrounded by the Oboro and his Naraku. The Kiheitai second in command slowly rises to his feet, apologizing to his boss that he will no longer live to help him and tells Shinpachi that he will create an opening for the teen to go through. He also asks for one last request: to tell Takasugi that Japan wasn’t finished yet. Although still wounded, the country and its people were still struggling to move forward and to rise again. So Takasugi shouldn’t die either, his enemies and his friends are still alive and fighting and he must live to become its ally or enemy. Either way, even if he does die, Bansai believes, he should do so next to his friends. Makoto and Kagura overlook where Takasugi fell but Kagura notices a cloaked figure saving the commander and covering him in Takasugi’s own yukata before leaving, stating his debt was paid. Kagura leaves before Makoto and their group realizes Takasugi survived. The heavily injured Katsura, the weakened Kaientai, and Gintoki fighting through the Naraku, struggle to reach the same cliffs. The injured Bansai himself fights the Naraku and becomes overwhelmed with the growing numbers until a ship blasts his location, knocking him out. A Naraku goes in for the kill with Shinpachi and Gintoki too far away to stop him, but then a thrown sword immediately kills him. Everyone looks on in shock as the perpetrator, the awake Takasugi, stands on the ledge. As he awakened, Takasugi muses on Rakuyou’s cloudy skies and compares himself to its rain/tears finally shed or finally stopped. He didn’t know if it was either or neither but declares that he was sick of rain. In the present, Takasugi orders his men to attack the Naraku while Oboro orders his men to attack Takasugi. Shinpachi, riding Sadaharu, rushes to Takasugi’s aid but a Naraku trips the dog and the teen falls off within range of two assassins. Gintoki throws his bokuto at one while Shinpachi defends against the other and another two assassins rush towards the heavily injured Bansai. Takasugi and Gintoki use each other’s’ swords to save each other’s comrades. The assassins split into two large group rushing towards the two men who tells them to move as there was someone they must greet. An explosion and backup signal the arrival of Katsura and his Joui faction, who declares that he will open a path for the two to reach the other. Then the Kaientai fleet arrives, dropping the Kairinmaru onto the assassins with Sakamoto and his men joining the fight. He berates Katsura for allowing the two battle-hungry men a chance to brawl, since it inevitable results in him trying to separate them. Katsura instead responds that they should join in and the Kaientai commander agrees. Takasugi, in seeing his former Joui friends, smiles before meeting with Gintoki and the two stab each other. Takasugi admits that humans don’t change easily, even after ten years they were still the same. Gintoki refutes this and states that ten years before they would have tried to kill each other, revealing that the two men had really killed an assassin that was behind the other. While they pulled out their own swords from the bodies behind them, Sakamoto and Katsura reach the duo with Katsura musing that they were just saving the best for last. With the Four Heavenly Kings standing back to back, Katsura finishes by saying they’ve all grown up; Gintoki tells him to shut up. After credits, three scenes, with Sakamoto, Katsura, and Takasugi respectively, replace Gintoki with Pakuyasa. Gintoki angrily berates BNP for ruining the cool ending with comedy before trying and failing to not be interrupted by the preview. Characters * Harusame ** Pluto Batou ** Shirei * Sakata Gintoki * Pakuyasa (debut) * Kagura * Shimura Shinpachi * Sadaharu * 7th Division ** Kamui (cameo) ** Abuto * Umibouzu * Kiheitai ** Takasugi Shinsuke ** Kijima Matako ** Takechi Henpeita ** Kawakami Bansai * Kaientai ** Sakamoto Tatsuma ** Mutsu * Jouishishi ** Katsura Kotarou ** Elizabeth * Tenshouin Naraku ** Oboro * Utsuro Trivia *The name Shiroi Onibito (White Demon Human) is a word play of a Hokkaido sweets company Shiroi Koibito (White Lover). Therefore it's implied that said company was the one that sued Pakuyasa for one of his failed ventures after leaving the war. Category:Episodes